Vol. 8 No. 4 (2026) Female Writings and Imaginaries in Medieval Literature

23-02-2026

Thematic Presentation Medieval literature constitutes a fertile field for exploring the ways in which women — both as authors and as narrative figures — produced, re-signified, and inhabited textual imaginaries within social contexts marked by patriarchal hierarchies, power dynamics, and dominant symbolic structures. This monographic issue proposes a critical dialogue on female writings and imaginaries in the Middle Ages, understanding writing not only as textual production attributed to women, but also as narrative, representational, performative, and subjective strategies that articulate female experiences, voices, and bodies within European and Mediterranean medieval literatures (in their various languages and traditions).

Contributions are invited to consider approaches addressing both medieval female authorities and canonical, peripheral, or marginalized female characters in texts of the period; exploration of the relationships between writing, corporeality, memory, agency, symbolization, and resistance in medieval contexts is also encouraged.

Suggested Topics Submissions may address, among others, the following thematic lines:

  • Medieval women authors and female genealogies of writing: study of documented women writers, their works, reception, transmission, and critical tradition.
  • Female characters and the construction of subjectivities: exploration of female figures in medieval narrative corpora (romances, epic, hagiography, courtly poetry, devotional literature, etc.).
  • Gender imaginaries and textual performativity in medieval narratives.
  • Bodies and affects: analysis of representations of the female body, desire, mourning, motherhood, illness, and spirituality.
  • Marginal writings, hybridizations, and symbolic resistance: subaltern textual practices, intertextualities, and strategies of subversion against patriarchal discourses. • The role of translation, transmission, and reception of medieval texts attributed to women or centered on women.
  • Intersectionalities of gender, class, religion, and ethnicity in the construction of the medieval female voice and imaginary.
  • Materialities of writing: manuscripts, codices, and paratextual forms associated with female textual production practices.

Important Information

Monographic issue edited by:

  • Miriam Olivieri (Università degli Studi di Salerno) - molivieri@unisa.it
  • Isabella Gordillo Ordóñez (Universidad de Cádiz) - isabella.gordiordo@alum.uca.es